As airlines continue to make money by charging my luggage more to ride than me, I turn to the trusty and more affordable automobile to get me to my destination.

Living in New Orleans offers more than a few vacation spots within drivable distance; Destin, Florida; Gulf Shores, Alabama; and Natchez, Mississippi, just to name a few.

Where 20 years ago, boxes of cassette tapes with specialty mixes of favorite songs were created to prevent mothers and fathers from enlisting unwilling children to perform singalongs of Broadway show-tunes or 1950s favorites, drivers nowadays only need to select "shuffle" on their iPods, and 21,441 songs are at the ready.

Streaming services like Pandora make the chore even easier by letting the computer select songs based on personally created algorithms, biometric patterns and probably my Facebook relationship status (which I can't prove, but I am suspicious.)

It's not an easy thing to do, especially when catering to a car full of family or friends. Nobody wants to be the person who turns a single hour into four by torturing passengers with "High Fidelity" no-nos such as Stevie Wonder's 1980s period, or playing Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel back-to-back.

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules."

So I ask you, my fellow New Orleanians, what should I put on my 60-minute mix tape? Spread your wings, unplug from your streaming media of choice, and create a perfect hour of music below.